Council Member Named In Ethics Complaint

February 28, 1992|By ALAN CHERRY and TOM LASSITER, Staff Writers

LAUDERHILL -- An ethics complaint has been filed in Tallahassee against City Council member Beverly Bard-Stracher, charging that she improperly tried to have her husband appointed legal counsel to the city`s Code Enforcement Board.

``I believe this is an attempt at character assassination concocted two weeks before an election,`` said Bard-Stracher, who denied the charge in a prepared statement on Tuesday.

Bard-Stracher, 34, is a first-term council member and is seeking re-election to her at-large seat on March 10.

The complaint was filed by political foe Frank Roberts.

Roberts is working for the re-election of incumbents John Mullin, Wally Elfers and Richard Kaplan and political first-timer Alice Reiter. The four are candidates in a six-way council race in which only the top five will be elected. The sixth candidate is council member Matt Meadows.

Roberts accused Bard-Stracher of attempting to swing a deal last year in support of her husband, Les ``Boomer`` Stracher, a lawyer. Roberts said Bard- Stracher agreed to support Roberts` appointment to the code board if he would back her husband as attorney to that board.

The purported deal fell through, Roberts said, when Bard-Stracher backed another candidate. Roberts said he did not pursue a complaint at that time because it was his word against Bard-Stracher`s.

But, Roberts said, he decided to file a complaint after finding a handwritten note in December from Bard-Stracher to Mullin that said:

``Sponsor ordinance to have mayor/or City Council hire and fire attorney for Code Enforcement Board.

``Ask (city attorney) Dick Michelson if Boomer can be hired.``

Bard-Stracher, a former Sun-Sentinel reporter, said the note was part of a joke and denied she had attempted to get her husband appointed to the board.

Mullin said he recalls Bard-Stracher handing him the note during a budget workshop last summer but cannot recall any conversation that might have accompanied it.

Roberts denied the ethics complaint is part of a last-minute plot to derail Bard-Stracher`s re-election bid.